Bluebell Time at Waresley Woods

The Bluebells this year are out along with the other spring flowers - Wood Anemones, Primroses, Celandine and Cuckoo Pint.

Foxley Wood Bluebells and Orchids

I first visited Foxley Wood last year on May 8 - see Blog Entry. The condition of the flowers was pretty similar for this visit on May 3rd - perhaps the flowers are a bit further ahead this year.  Always difficult in sunny conditions to get the essence of the bluebell carpet (first image in-camera blur using a flower very close to lens to give a blue haze). The three orchids taken at f5, f7.1 and f20 with 24mm end of Fuji 10-24mm lens.

Pasque Flowers 5: Bluebells 10

Barry joined me on my annual pilgrimage to Therfield Heath for the Pasque flowers and Gamlingay Woods for the Bluebells and other Spring flowers. There is a reasonable display of Pasque flowers this year with some already over and some still to come out - the snails are munching their way through quite a lot of them. The Bluebells and Oxlips are at their best at the moment and a very good year. 

Kew 2. Flowers

A lovely time to visit Kew Gardens with the trees just coming into leaf and lots of spring bedding to admire. I concentrated on the wildflower area where the bluebells are almost at their best (another week or so). I also practised a bit of focus stacking ready for Sunday's workshop. These were done handholding the camera and moving myself forward during a fast burst of image capture. Unstacked on left, stacked on the right (50mm lens f2.8)

Hardwick Wood Spring Flowers

This year all the woodland flowers are out at the same time rather than the usual succession. I used my lightweight Fuji Macro kit of 50mm Zeiss macro and the 10-24mm wide angle. Need more practice getting the focus right but happy with some. It was a bright sunny morning and therefore lots of light and shade which the contrasty Zeiss lens accentuates while the 10-24mm lens works well with a wider contrast range, Here more and less contrasty images displayed as pairs. The Oxlips (image 5,6) are only just coming out and appear very thin stemmed so far.